Seeing into hearts and minds: Part 2. ‘Big data’, algorithms,and computational counterinsurgency

In this second of his two‐part article, the author analyzes the rise of ‘predictive policing’ and its Pentagon connections, reviews two programmes, and poses these in the context of scientists' concerns over artificial intelligence and long‐term human survival.     

Prehistoric Bird Watching in Southern Iberia? The Rock Art of Tajo de las Figuras Reconsidered

ABSTRACT

This paper studies the relationship between humans and birds in the recent prehistory of the Southern Iberian Peninsula. With its high number of bird, mammal, and anthropomorphic paintings, a small rock shelter –Tajo de las Figuras– provides an excellent case study to address this topic. The cave is situated in an ecosystem that, as we will argue, favoured human-bird interactions and enabled prehistoric groups to engage with a diverse and rich bird community at particular times of the year. Even though the recorded depictions can generally be integrated into the wider ‘Schematic’ style regime characterising the recent prehistory of the region, they exhibit some outstanding features including a highly distinct naturalism. This naturalism enables us to identify the represented birds, not only at the family but also at the species level. Our contribution describes these pictorial data and contextualises them with the ecology, archaeology, and archaeozoology of the area. We intend to show that the singularity of the image-corpus registered at Tajo de las Figuras mirrors the unique conditions of human-bird interactions at the time. We suggest that the significance of the images derives from the special location of the cave in the wider landscape encouraging early practices of bird watching.     

Paleonutritional and paleodietary survey on prehistoric humans from Las Cañadas del Teide (Tenerife,Canary Islands) based on chemical and histological analysis of bone

The aim of the present study is to perform a paleodietary and paleonutritional survey on 17 individuals buried in accordance with the prehispanic ritual in the central plateau of the island Tenerife, called Las Cañadas del Teide. We recorded hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon isotope compositions of human bone collagen, bone barium and strontium, and histomorphometrically assessed trabecular bone mass (TBM). Bone trace elements and TBM were compared with reference data derived from a modern sample consisting of 13 individuals. In addition, δ¹⁵N and δ¹³C values were determined in several modern indigenous plants, bone collagen of prehistoric domestic animals (goat and pig), and prehistoric wild animals (a giant lizard, Gallotia goliath and a giant rat, Canaryomis bravoi), which represent food sources potentially consumed by the prehistoric population of the Island. The carbon stable isotope composition of bone collagen ranged between ?20.5 and ?18.6‰ (VPDB), indicating a diet based on C₃ plants. Nitrogen isotope values ranged from 8.2 to 12.4‰ (AIR), suggesting a general meat-enriched diet, most likely domestic goats, of higher level consumers. Hydrogen isotope values ranged from ?18 to +4‰, whereas log Ba/Sr was greater than ?0.40 in the vast majority of cases. TBM showed a tendency to osteoporosis in 30% of the individuals analyzed. C-14 dating showed that two burial sites, including 5 individuals, belonged to the post-conquest era (after the 15th century), despite a fully “prehispanic” burial ritual, which lends credenceto the oral tradition that some of the prehispanic population fled to the highlands at the time of the Spanish conquest, and lived there during decades or even centuries. These individuals showed lower δD, δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N, and higher log Ba/Sr values than those buried before the Spanish conquest, suggesting dietary differences between the two groups. Also, women showed a trend to a higher consumption of vegetables than men.     

Liminality Wanted. Liminal landscapes and literary spaces: The Way of St. James

Abstract

The term limen was introduced to anthropological studies following Van Gennep’s theories (1960) about liminality. Among them, Victor and Edith Turner (1978) defined pilgrimage as a liminal experience, as it implies being between two existential levels that, through rituality, favours reflection. In this sense, the case of The Way of St. James (Spain) is an interesting field or research as it is loaded with contemporary meanings. Its landscapes assume the nature of spiritual and therapeutic ones; here, the physical and built environment, social conditions and human perceptions produce an atmosphere favourable to spiritual healing. On the basis of these emotions, liminality is the essence of this pilgrimage experience, not only during the same, but especially afterwards. As a matter of fact, this spiritual journey involves the search for one’s self once back home, thus acting in the process of formation of the individual. Drawing on the need for improving researches on landscape perception approach in tourism studies, we pretend to singularise the pilgrimage landscape from a liminal perspective in order to point out the need for liminality before, during and after the pilgrimage. This is achieved by exploring perceptions and emotions expressed in a corpus of travel literary production. These narrative works are not limited to describe the pilgrimage experiences; rather they make liminality a literary theme to magnify their experiences. As a result, the concept of liminal literary landscape is used to refer to pilgrims’ desire to revive liminality through the pages of travel narratives, in order to continue enjoying these emotions and feelings. These travel narratives are producing new literary modes based on the geographical exploration of the landscapes of The Way in relation to human feelings.     

The interplay between school and home location and its relationship with children’s subjective well-being

ABSTRACT

The aim is to determine the extent to which children’s subjective well-being (SWB) varies according to age, gender and the fact of living in the same context as the school (urban/rural) or not, in representative samples of 8, 10 and 12-year-olds (N?=?3708) in Spain. The existence of a match between schoolchildren’s living context and that of their school was the most common situation for the participants. The results, analysed using linear regression models and analysis of variance (ANOVA) with complex samples, show that a match between home and school context is not associated with statistically different levels of SWB in the three age groups (8, 10 and 12-year-olds) or by gender. Whereas no interactions between age, gender, school context and home location contribute to explaining overall life satisfaction, some do contribute to explaining the modified version of the Student’s Life Satisfaction Scale (SLSS) used here.     

Marble Pieces in the Romanesque Portal of Glory of the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral. New Data through a Multi-Analytical Approach

ABSTRACT

Probably the most important Romanesque artwork in Spain, the Portal of Glory of Santiago de Compostela is essentially made in granite, the most abundant stone in the NW of Iberia, with the only exception of five marble pieces. Different hypothesis on the origin of these marbles have previously been proposed based on visual assessment or by directly assuming a local source. To shed light on their quarry provenance, a multi-analytical study was performed combining polarized-light optical microscopy, cathodoluminescence microscopy, XRPD, SEM-EDS and stable C and O isotopes. The comparison of the results with the available databases reveals the use of marbles from the Estremoz Anticline (Portugal) in the three exquisitely carved columns strategically placed in the central arcade, whereas the other two pieces are local marbles, illustrating a more complex consumption of this noble material than that initially expected.     

Fluvial dispersal potential of guanaco bones (Lama guanicoe) under controlled experimental conditions: the influence of age classes to the hydrodynamic behavior

Hydrodynamic sorting is a taphonomic process able to transport and scatter bones deposited in archaeological and paleontological sites. This study presents the results of experimentation performed in an artificial flume with guanaco (Lama guanicoe) bones of different ontogenetic development, dry and saturated in water, in hydric flows velocities of 15 and 30 cm/s. The obtained results show that bone global density, the age of the individual, the dry or wet bone state, and the hydric flow velocity influence significantly bone dispersion. In this way, bones from immature individuals with unfused secondary growth centers and relatively low bulk density have better possibility of being transported than fused bones from adult individuals. Taking into account the results obtained in this experimentation and the feasibility of discriminating age categories in fossil assemblages, two bone groups with differential potential transport are presented in this paper. These transport groups constitute a methodological tool to evaluate the role hydric current may had played in the formation of a fossil assemblage.     

Seeing into hearts and minds: Part 1. The Pentagon's quest for a ‘social radar’ (Respond to this article at https://www.therai.org.uk/publications/anthropology-today/debate)

In this two‐part article, explored are the many funded programmes by which security agencies and private companies mine ‘big data’ and attempt to measure the sociocultural and psychological states of whole populations. How is failure or success measured? What kinds of new institutions/practices might these give rise to? Part 1 ‘The Pentagon's quest for a “social radar”’, published in this issue, comes to terms with today's many sociocultural modelling and forecasting efforts, looks in detail at one company in particular, and ends up reviewing the role of anthropologists in their development and critique. Part 2 ‘“Big data”, algorithms, and computational counterinsurgency’, to be published in a future issue, will analyze the rise of ‘predictive policing’ and its Pentagon connections, reviews two programmes, and poses these in the context of scientists' concerns over artificial intelligence and long‐term human survival.