Recent Progress in Bioarchaeology: Approaches to the Osteological Paradox

The publication of The Osteological Paradox (Wood et al., 1992, Current Anthropology, 33:343–370) a decade ago sparked debate about the methods and conclusions drawn from bioarchaeological research. Wood et al. (1992, Current Anthropology, 33:343–370) highlighted the problematic issues of selective mortality and hidden heterogeneity in frailty (susceptibility to illness), and argued that the interpretation of population health status from skeletal remains is not straightforward. Progress in bioarchaeology over the last few years has led to the development of tools that will help us grapple with the issues of this osteological paradox. This paper provides a review of recent literature on age and sex estimation, paleodemography, biodistance, growth disruption, paleopathology, and paleodiet. We consider how these advances may help us address the implications of hidden heterogeneity in frailty and selective mortality for studies of health and adaptation in past societies.     

Frail hope and new frontiers

This guest editorial takes as its starting point the 2021 guest editorial in ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY on the anthropology of blockchain written by Kosmarski and Gordiychuk, in which they discussed the possibilities of blockchain in terms of a ‘frail hope of novel, weird, grassroots, decentralized forms of social life’. They also argued that blockchain brought us to ‘new frontiers’ in politics, economics, capital, votes and subjective feelings. Two years later, in this 2023 guest editorial, the authors take stock of where blockchain technology stands concerning these ‘frail hopes’ and ‘new frontiers’. They distinguish between three articulations of blockchain imaginaries: blockchain-as-discourse, blockchain-as-sociotechnical assemblage and blockchain-as-spectacle. Then, they explore what blockchain means for capital, and whether we are headed towards mass adoption of blockchain technology, concluding that, for now, they see primarily institutional adoption. The authors also discern parallel institutional structures, with traditional finance on one side and blockchain-enabled crypto finance on the other, and they examine the regulated future of crypto assets.     

Front and Back Covers,Volume 30, Number 2. April 2014

Front and back cover caption, volume 30 issue 2 Front cover GDP WORLD New York City's daily carbon dioxide emissions in 2010 as one‐tonne spheres visualized to engage the ‘person on the street’ (still from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtqSIplGXOA ). As the gross domestic product (GDP) turns 80 this year, it is time to reflect on the profound impact that this ‘almighty number’ has had on our societies. GDP drives not only our economies, but also our political social systems. Politicians are rewarded when GDP goes up and kicked out of office when it goes down. Democratically elected governments are bound to adhere to GDP‐friendly policies. As GDP has removed traditional issues of distribution and social justice from public debate by reducing the political economy to the ‘correct’ management of the business cycle, it has afforded unprecedented power to all sorts of technocrats, from central bankers to credit rating agencies. As it turns out, GDP has turned our societies into cages of consumerism, where the political notion of citizen has been largely replaced by that of consumer. But the convergence of contemporary crises, from climate change to the global economic downturn, opens new opportunities to contest the power of GDP. By looking at the economic, political and anthropological impacts of the GDP at work, this issue of ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY intends to stimulate a cross‐disciplinary reflection on the type of society we live in. We begin in this issue with an exchange between Lorenzo Fioramonti and Jane Guyer on their respective takes on these indicators. Back cover OLDEST HUMAN FOOTPRINTS IN EUROPE? As the soft sediments of the East Anglian coast are eroded away, the underlying evidence of past human occupation is revealed. In Happisburgh, on the Norfolk coast, archaeologists have discovered tools and other evidence of early human activity as early as 800,000 years ago. Most recently, after a storm, a set of footprints were revealed in the silt of an extinct estuary. The footprints are thought to belong to a small group of adults and children, and have been dated between 780,000 and 1 million years old; this would make them the earliest known human footprints outside of Africa. Subsequent to being photographed, they were washed away by the sea. In this issue, Richard Irvine reflects on the significance of these findings for anthropologists engaged with environmental change. Encounters with the past shape how we understand time in coastal environments, allowing us to think beyond present day coastlines and imagine environments in flux. However, in a location such as Happisburgh, the impact of coastline changes are a source of major controversy, as the cliffs retreat by metres each year and the land under people's houses is swept away into the sea. Observing these processes of destruction and revelation at work, we sit at the intersection of long term variation and present‐day dilemmas.     

Australia,India and the Uranium Question

This article examines the bipartisan nuclear ‘grand bargain’, namely that Australia would only export uranium to states signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), in framing Australian policy and debate towards India. India has not signed the NPT, and shows no willingness to do so. Since 2006 the domestic political and media debate regarding uranium sales to India shows that this grand bargain is fraying. This article explores the major arguments that have been elucidated by Australian political party leaders either for or against uranium sales to India and concludes with a discussion of the opportunities and challenges presented to Australia if it were to make an exception for India.     

The boundary dispute between Chile and Argentina

In November 1920, James Young Simpson, Professor of Natural Science in New College, Edinburgh and Trinity College, Glasgow, was invited by the governments of Latvia and Lithuania to chair a commission which would settle the disputed border between the two newly‐independent states. Upon his return to Edinburgh in May 1921, Simpson deposited the papers and final report on the commission's decision with the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, of which he was an active member. This article will explain why and how Simpson came to be involved in diplomatic decisions so remote from his home life and work, and will analyse the significance of the results of Simpson's efforts on the arbitration commission.     

The global city thesis — social polarization and changes in the distribution of wages

The global city thesis by which Sassen (1991) has linked globalization with increased social polarization has attracted much attention and caused considerable discussion over the past decade. This article illustrates divergent approaches that have been taken to the study of social polarization and provides an overview of the issues that have been discussed in relation to the polarization debate. I argue that the global city thesis has been misleading and that the empirical work underlying it has been too limited. Thereafter I test the empirical basis for Sassen's thesis in an analysis of the distribution of wages in the New York Metropolitan Area during the period 1970 to 1990.     

Front and Back Covers,Volume 29, Number 6. December 2013

Front and back cover caption, volume 29 issue 6 Front cover PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY A satirical political activist known as ‘Ivy League Legacy’ strides across the Great Lawn of New York City's Central Park carrying a ‘Corporations are people too!’ placard, on her way to a ‘Billionaire Croquet Party’. Spending the day on satirical protests with companions such as Phil T. Rich and Iona Bigga Yacht, she would eventually join up with hundreds of thousands of other protesters in a massive march through Manhattan. Ivy League Legacy and fellow satirical protesters – attired in tuxedos and top hats or elegant gowns, tiaras, and satin gloves – waved signs such as ‘Leave no billionaire behind!’. They are part of a national network of satirical street theater protesters who call themselves Billionaires—Billionaires for Bush in 2004, Billionaires for Bailouts during the 2008 financial meltdown, and so on. These ‘billionaires’ aim to disrupt dominant discursive frames by deploying irony and satire. As they simultaneously mimic and mock the ultra‐rich, they spotlight questions about democracy and economic fairness: they are tricksters who call attention to what is shadowy or hidden, taunting the powerful and exposing power's fault lines and contingencies. In this special issue on public anthropology, Angelique Haugerud and Thomas Hylland Eriksen argue that public anthropologists can learn from the spirit of the trickster. They and the other contributors probe the challenges of reaching wider publics without sacrificing informed critique and ethnographic nuance. Back cover PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY & THE LEGACY OF DICTATORSHIPS Anthropologist Francisco Ferrándiz carries a plastic box with the remains of one of seven peasants executed by one of Franco's military squads in 1941 in the village of Fontanosas, Ciudad Real, Spain, for allegedly cooperating with the maquis anti‐Franco guerrillas. Exhumed in 2006, these were returned to their community that same year. The remains, once analyzed and identified, were taken from a forensic laboratory in the Basque Country to the village's cultural center for a public memorial ceremony before being reinterred in a communal pantheon within the cemetery. Scientists in charge of the exhumation and the ethnographic and historical research had a major role in this ceremony. In the background, three Civil Guards are on duty to protect the authorities at the civic memorial, to which the Church was not invited. During the Civil War up to Franco's death, the Civil Guard had been complicit and were themselves involved in executions at the time. The local lieutenant initially tried to boycott this particular exhumation. Public anthropology has a role to play in addressing the longstanding legacies of cruel dictatorships and to explore avenues for distributing justice. Vigilant and critical academic analysis plays a crucial part in prising open secrecy. In this case, a public anthropologist is involved in all of the following: in news and policy making, writing judicial expert reports, cooperating with NGOs, facilitating a public voice for victims, lending institutional legitimacy to civic memorial acts and physically presenting boxes of the remains of the disappeared to a remote village of 200 citizens. All these activities can be, and often are, the duties of a public anthropologist. In his article in this issue, Francisco Ferrándiz refers to this work as ‘rapid response ethnography’.     

梁实秋的新人文主义旅行观及其现代意义

梁实秋是一名坚定的新人文主义者。其旅行观以“逃避论”、“枯寂论”为核心,将人生、人性、美食与旅行相结合,构建了独树一帜的新人文主义旅行观,促进了现代文人旅游思想史的演进。     

The ‘rights’ (and ‘wrongs’) of articulating race with sexuality: the conflicting nature of hegemonic legitimisation in South African queer politics

Much work has recently explored the remarkable legislative achievements that have benefited queer groups in South Africa. Less well understood has been an appreciation as to how the links between histories of racism and histories of sexuality deployed to legitimate such legal challenges may also have directly helped to entrench the ability of others to argue against queer rights. Drawing on the work of Stuart Hall, this article will explore how queer activist's association with an ideology of ‘equality’ (and the link between racism and sexuality-based discrimination) has not simply concluded discussion about the rights (or wrongs) of queer rights. Instead that association has helped align the issue of sexuality within a far broader debate as to what the ‘New South Africa’ should mean after a racist past. This may help us appreciate a so far little understood and yet key reason why homophobia remains such a pervasive problem in the country.     

Discipline or profession: Anthropology and its guilds

Chambers, Erve. Applied Anthropology: A Practical Guide. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1986. ix + 258 pp., including references and index.

Driben, Paul. Aroland Is Our Home: An Incomplete Victory in Applied Anthropology. New York: AMS Press, 1986. xiv + 185 pp., including chapter notes and index. $32.50 cloth.

Eddy, Elizabeth M. and William L. Partridge, eds. Applied Anthropology in America, Second Edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987. xiii + 571 pp., including bibliography.

Van Willigen, John. Applied Anthropology: An Introduction. South Hadley, Massachusetts: Bergin & Garvey Publishers, 1986. xviii + 259 pp., including bibliography and index. $36.95 cloth, $18.95 paper.     

Leading Lights in the ‘Mother of Darkness’: Perspectives on Leadership and Value in North Ambrym,Vanuatu

In comparative political theory in Anthropology, Pacific leadership has had a prominent place, with a long history of debate about typologies and forms. In this paper I eschew such approaches in favour of a demonstration of the complexity of interactions fostered in local communities by interpretations of a protean ‘tradition’, refracted by a history of encounters with modernity and its social imaginary at a particular historical moment. The narratives of three local leaders in Vanuatu's recent history, provide a context for evaluating the relative merits of such typologies when the grounds of leadership itself are contested.     

Current approaches to teaching introductory physical anthropology

Joseph B. Birdsell. Human Evolution: An Introduction to the New Physical Anthropology. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972. xiii + 546 pp. Illustrations, figures, bibliography, and index. $9.95

Bobby J. Williams. Evolution and Human Origins: An Introduction to Physical Anthropology. New York: Harper & Row, 1973. ix + 277 pp. Illustrations, bibliography, and index. $10.95.     

Toward a feminist paradigm in anthropology

Rayna R. Reiter, ed., Toward an Anthropology of Women. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975. 416 pp. Bibliography. $15.00.     

Aid and the Geopolitics of the Post‐Colonial: Critical Reflections on New Labour’s Overseas Development Strategy

In the post Cold War era, issues of poverty, inequality and social exclusion have become central to many of the key discussions of international relations and development aid. In this context, this article sets out to analyse the nature and specificity of the development strategy of the New Labour government in Britain, as it has evolved since 1997. In the setting of the literatures on post‐colonialism, aid and development, the authors examine the specific concepts and approaches that help to frame such a strategy, giving particular attention to the commonalities and divergences between the British Government’s 1997 and 2000 White Papers. The perspective used connects ideas and issues from domains of knowledge which tend to remain independent of each other, namely aid and development studies and post‐colonial theory. Situated on the terrain of aid and development, the guiding objective of the article is to raise certain questions concerning power, knowledge and geopolitics, so that a wider conceptual and policy‐oriented debate might be engendered.     

A united states of Australasia?

Australia and New Zealand have always been close, and the adoption of the Closer Economic Relations Agreement has brought them closer. In the context of public debate in Australia about constitutional reform it is appropriate to discuss the possibility of political union between the two countries. This article looks at some of the processes and politics involved with five scenarios under which union might or might not take place. They are: New Zealand as one or more Australian states; the Canadian model; an Australasian Parliament like the European Parliament; the abolition of the Australian states; and the secession of the Australian states.     

Counterinsurgency and the M‐VICO System: Human Relations Area Files and anthropology's dual‐use legacy

Over the past decade, ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY has published a number of features covering the relationship between anthropology and the security state. Here, David Price draws attention to an aborted counterinsurgency project, known as the M‐VICO project. Building on the categories and structures employed in the Human Relation Area Files (HRAF), this project relied on anthropologists to encode data cross‐culturally on all forms of behaviour in as many strategic localities as possible, which the security services subsequently scrutinize and probe for possible weaknesses that could be exploited. In this article, David Price shows that, in the secrecy that often surrounds the financing and precise purposes of its projects, anthropology is not all that different from many other disciplines, with some projects serving what he calls ‘dual‐use’ ends. Since civilian researchers are not supposed to have full knowledge of these ends, research into these semi‐covert purposes is particularly challenging.     

Front and back cover caption,volume 39 issue 3

Front and back cover caption, volume 39 issue 3 ROBOTIC BUDDHIST FUNERAL PRIESTS Humanoid robot ‘Pepper’, produced by SoftBank Robotics, debuts to great fanfare in 2017 in its new role as a Buddhist priest and funeral attendant at ENDEX, the Japanese funeral and cemetery industry convention. Alongside AR grave design programs, eco-urns and ash jewellery, Pepper is one of many striking, experimental products and services aimed at reinvigorating and reinventing Japan's ‘ending industry’. In a country with a rapidly aging population, Japan is facing a crisis in how to handle death. Traditional Buddhist funeral rites are becoming increasingly expensive and difficult to find, and many families are looking for new ways to say goodbye to their loved ones. One possible solution is the use of robotic Buddhist priests. These robots are programmed to chant sutras, lead prayers and perform other traditional funeral rituals. They are also much cheaper than human priests, making them an attractive option for families on a budget. The use of robotic priests is still in its early stages, but it has the potential to revolutionize the way death is handled in Japan. By providing a more affordable and accessible option for funeral services, robots could help to ensure that everyone has a dignified send-off, regardless of their financial situation. These interventions respond to the weakening of traditional Buddhist death rites and the socio-religious structures that once supported them. THE FIRST BLACK STUDENT IN ANTHROPOLOGY James Arthur Harley (1873-1943), a talented polymath with a degree from Harvard University, arrived in Edwardian England in 1907 and enrolled in the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford to pursue a Diploma in Anthropology. Unfortunately, the curriculum at the time perpetuated racist ideologies that portrayed and thought of black people as intellectually inferior, exotic, sub-species, sub-human – savage. However, Harley's presence at Britain's world-renowned university, a bastion of white elite privilege, prestige and class, was not unique. Thirty-four years earlier in 1873, Christian Frederick Cole (1853-1885) from Sierra Leone became the university's first black scholar when he matriculated at University College, aged 21, to read for an honours degree in Classical Moderations, going on to achieve the august status of Britain's first black barrister. Harley, an Antiguan scholar, completed the course and became the first black man to earn the diploma. In so doing, he, like many black scholars at the University of Oxford, from Alain LeRoy Locke (1885-1954), the first black Rhodes scholar, later known as the father of the Harlem Renaissance, to Kofoworola Moore (1913-2002), the first black woman to receive a degree in 1932, all obliterated the preconceived racist-held ideologies with their achievements and later contributions. Anthropology continuously evolves and adapts to the changes humans experience in this world. Through the presence of Harley and his fellow pioneers in these institutions, we see how they gradually evolve and reframe how black students are viewed. These early students were change agents and perhaps instigators of decolonized curricula and forged a path for other black students to follow.     

Adgar's Gracial and Christian images of Jews in twelfth-century vernacular literature

This article concerns the adaptation and translation into the Anglo-Norman vernacular of an existing tradition of Latin miracles of the Virgin by the twelfth-century poet William Adgar. Adgar included many older ideas about Jews in his version of the stories, but also borrowed themes and language from contemporary courtly romance literature in order to suit his intended audience of lay nobles. In doing so, he portrayed Christian characters as the embodiment of loyalty and other courtly values. At the same time, he began to portray Jews according to courtly types of treachery. New implications emerged in his work about the general moral character of Jews, in contrast to previous works that commented mainly upon the nature of Jewish belief. Recent scholarship on Christian-Jewish relations in the twelfth century has begun to pay increasing attention to the movement of new Christian ideas about Jews outside of scholarly and ecclesiastical circles. The study of vernacular literature has an important place in this scholarly debate, since the move to the vernacular broadened the audience among which the new ideas about Jews could be spread.     

Adgar's Gracial and Christian images of Jews in twelfth-century vernacular literature

This article concerns the adaptation and translation into the Anglo-Norman vernacular of an existing tradition of Latin miracles of the Virgin by the twelfth-century poet William Adgar. Adgar included many older ideas about Jews in his version of the stories, but also borrowed themes and language from contemporary courtly romance literature in order to suit his intended audience of lay nobles. In doing so, he portrayed Christian characters as the embodiment of loyalty and other courtly values. At the same time, he began to portray Jews according to courtly types of treachery. New implications emerged in his work about the general moral character of Jews, in contrast to previous works that commented mainly upon the nature of Jewish belief. Recent scholarship on Christian-Jewish relations in the twelfth century has begun to pay increasing attention to the movement of new Christian ideas about Jews outside of scholarly and ecclesiastical circles. The study of vernacular literature has an important place in this scholarly debate, since the move to the vernacular broadened the audience among which the new ideas about Jews could be spread.