New Ireland Malanggan Art: A Quest for Meaning

ABSTRACT Sustained scholarly interest in the malanggan carvings of New Ireland has achieved consensus regarding the social, political, and economic functions of the ceremonies in which they are used but inconclusive interpretations of the iconography of the art objects themselves continue. This paper finds an interpretation of recurring motifs in a reexamination of early reports, published and unpublished, of former burial customs. The perspective presented here supports but cannot confirm informants' insistence that the carvings are not religious but just pictures. No conclusions are reached regarding pre‐ or post‐Christian beliefs in general, but doubt is cast on their role in malanggan art. Some theoretical implications and further research directions are suggested.     

Evaluating bone collagen extraction methods for stable isotope analysis in dietary studies

The specific purpose of this study was to compare three different collagen extraction methods commonly used in isotope laboratories conducting dietary studies. We evaluated their resultant differences in δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N, collagen quality and collagen yield. Our study was based on well-preserved skeletal material from the medieval period in Denmark. Our study shows that there is a systematic significant difference in the yield and the δ¹³C values between the three methods. Using the method of DeNiro and Epstein [DeNiro, M.J., Epstein, S., 1981. Influence of diet on the distribution of nitrogen isotopes in animals. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 45, 341–351] with NaOH as cleaning agent, will, according to our study, give δ¹³C values that are on average ±0.32‰ more positive than using the ultra-filtration method [Brown, T.A., Nelson, D.E., Vogel, J.S., Southon, J.R., 1988. Improved collagen extraction by modified Longin method. Radiocarbon 30 (2), 171–177, modified in Richards, M.P., Hedges R.E.M., 1999. Stable isotope evidence for similarities in the types of marine foods used by late Mesolithic humans at sites along the Atlantic coast of Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science 26, 717–722]. The third method, which is a modified version of the second method, excluded the ultra-filtration step. This method seems to give δ¹³C values that lie in between the other methods. Our study did not show any significant difference in δ¹⁵N values. Although the differences between the methods are very small, we conclude that the use of stable isotope analysis in food determination studies requires adherence to routine methods for preparing and measuring samples.     

Foreclosure Risk and Community Health: Does Social Capital Have a Protective Effect?

This study draws upon the social determinants of health framework to model and test the extent to which a community’s social capital is health protective in the face of a substantial economic shock, namely the recent foreclosure crisis. U.S. county–level data are used to analyze potential moderating effects of social capital on health given a community’s foreclosure risk. We rely upon established social capital measures for U.S counties and merge them with county level foreclosure risk scores constructed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). While theorists suggest that social capital’s effect on health and other outcomes may be durable over time there have been few empirical tests of this. We interact established social capital indicators measured at two points in time with foreclosure risk to predict overall self-reported health. Our results provide strong support suggesting that high levels of social capital are health protective. Communities with high levels of social capital that are facing high foreclosure risks report significantly better aggregate health outcomes than comparable communities facing the same level of foreclosure risk, but lower levels of social capital.     

A Supermarket of anthropology: AAA 2002

Conference reviewed:
Mette Louise Berg, A Supermarket of Anthropology AAA Meeting, New Orleans, 20–24 November 2002