2021-11-04
2021-10-31
Halloween goes global - chronicle with insights from anthropology
https://www.sapiens.org/culture/halloween-history-global/ was published in 2018, but still pinpoints the meanings and motives today for this many-sided, globalizing event: "How Halloween Has Traveled the Globe. Whether trick-or-treating in the United States or costume play celebrations in Japan, Allhallows Eve has taken many forms as its traditions travel the world." By Amber Dance.
2021-10-27
headstones maker at work
Physical traces of past centuries can be seen in stonework. Cemeteries offer a kind of sociological gallery of stonecutters. This story looks at headstone carving by hand in 2021, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hand-carved-gravestones
2021-09-23
archaeology from melting snows - Mongolia prehistory
Story of human activity once buried in snow and ice but now revealed as the Earth heats up.
2021-09-10
outreach & archaeology topics
crossposting from D. Stapp on September 9, 2021
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The Journal of Northwest Anthropology has today released an edited collection of 24 essays focused on reaching out to the public and others. We are making an e-copy available to those who are interested on our website for no cost. The essays are focused on projects, writings, curricula, and recommendations. You can get your e-copy of How Do We Reach More? Sharing Cultural and Archaeological Research with Others at the following address:
www.northwestanthropology.com/
While many of us do a lot of outreach, I think it is safe to say we need to do more to make this world a better place. I'd be interested in my colleagues thoughts on strategies they have used to reach more.
2021-08-28
English spelling - some hurdles for new learners
FB posting of poems that embody the wacky spelling of our shared language, with preface by young person with Dysgraphia - writing/spelling difficulties,
Open poem lines:
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, laugh, and through.
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword
Well done! And now if you wish, perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps,
Beware of heard, a dreadful word...2021-07-25
Archaeology beneath today's Istanbul
Five-minute radio story to hear online, or to view the transcript with many vivid photos to illustrate the story of archaeology that lies beneath the city streets, https://www.npr.org/2021/07/23/1016814868/beneath-istanbul-archaeologists-explore-an-ancient-citys-byzantine-basements
2021-03-01
Language and Zoom remote video communication, American Sign Language
The interplay of sign language and telecommunication methods and styles and tastes features here,
2021-02-25
Why designating a language "endangered" may lead to problems
Paper presented 2/2021 via online platform and then the source text shared on LinkedIn:
Rethinking the Language of Language Endangerment
Gerald Roche (Senior Research Fellow, La Trobe University)2021-02-19
films in Native Languages - LOTE (Languages Other Than English)
This is an engaging article and overview to the subject.
Excerpt
... .Another notable choice was for the 2021 opening night film, Waikiki (2020), directed by Christopher Kahunahana. This film took us all on an emotional and harrowing journey that guided us to introspection. Correa, who was born and raised in Hawaiʻi, described his experience watching Waikiki: "I watched it and I cried. It spoke to the experience that happens to a lot of us in Hawai'i. The film itself is centered around this idea of mental illness in society and disconnection from the land. I think that is something that affects all Native Hawaiians. We're always trying to get back to the land. We are always trying to find that connection."
These films made a lasting impression because language is a grounds for and a form of intimacy. For those of us who live away from our motherland, it is a way to reconnect with our family and culture. For those of us whose motherland has been taken away, it roots us to our land.
2021-02-11
book and documentary (Kyushu) - 40 years of Japan fieldwork
Promoting her latest book, Prof. Joy Hendry talks of her long-term ties to the people of rural Japan [extremis.com 2021 An Affair with a Village],
book and documentary (Kyushu) - 40 years of Japan fieldwork
Promoting her latest book, Prof. Joy Hendry and her long-term ties to the people of rural Japan,
2021-01-20
Human language wonders
- JRR Tolkien's many languages (constructed languages) for Middle Earth (about 14 minutes), https://youtu.be/VFlyQk_uVAI
- European reporter in USA [taken from his early January 2021 Tweet]: From Dalton, Georgia to Washington, D.C., here's my coverage for @AP_GMS of last week's events in French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Luxembourgish, in that order.https://twitter.com/i/status/1349025211518246912
2021-01-03
archaeology - 12 sites featured in Smithsonian Institution book
[description from publication page 1/2021]
A new book Incredible Archaeology: Inspiring Places From Our Human Past, out this month from Smithsonian Books, explores some of the world's most spectacular ancient wonders. (Alpineguide/Alamy). SMITHSONIANMAG.COM | Nov. 30, 2020, 9 a.m.
Incredible Archaeology: Inspiring Places from Our Human Past is a global tour of ancient sites, from the famous and much-visited Machu Picchu to lesser-traversed places, like North America's Viking Settlement, L'anse Aux Meadows, or the rock paintings of the San people in South Africa's Game Pass Shelter. The collection, offered by Smithsonian Books and assembled by writer and editor Paul Bahn, includes breathtaking photos of temples entangled in jungle, settlements once concealed by rising water, and ancient cities long abandoned. Incredible Archaeology takes readers on an arm-chair journey to far-flung corners of the globe and spans thousands of years, from our earliest ancestors to the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
These selected 12 places sampled from Incredible Archeology are a testament to human ingenuity and perseverance.
The Viking Settlement of L'Anse Aux Meadows
The Great Houses of Chaco Canyon in New Mexico held great symbolic and ceremonial importance to the Chacoan people. (Efrain Padro / Alamy)
The Mountaintop City of Monte Albán
The Geoglyph Nazca Lines
The Iron Age Settlement at Biskupin
The Sanctuary of Delphi
The Twin Temples at Abu Simbel
Game Pass Shelter
The City of Ur
Cave Temples and Monasteries at Ajanta
Aboriginal Art in Kakadu National Park
Gyeongju: Museum Without Walls
2020-12-05
Curated online listening/watching, bi-weekly
(example) From the email to American Anthropological Association members on Saturday, December 5, 2020 and issued for the past month or so as a convenience and way to promote wider participation in these arenas.
- Caste, Speaking of Race
- Moments of Resilience Amid a Pandemic, Sapiens
- Episode 117 - Fish People, The Dirt
- 85: How Food "Authenticity" Commodifies Identities With Jenny Dorsey, AnthroDish
- The Familiar Strange
- Ep# 68"Landing on the Earth": Ashley Carruthers on Organic Farming and Cycling in Vietnam, The Familiar Strange
- More than a Game: Sports, Race, and Masculinity in Diaspora w/ Vyjayanthi Vadrevu and Stanley Thangaraj, This Anthro Life
- Meet Islam's Da Vinci: Al-Biruni, father of geodesy, anthropology, and master of pharmacy, ZMEScience
- Seven Essential Listens From the Indigenous Podcasting Boom, Vanity Fair
- Why We Can't Stop Talking about 'Hipster' Pastors, Christianity Today
- Color Struck!, Zora's Daughter
- The Black Liberal Agenda, Zora's Daughter
- In Search of Light in Dark Times, The SCAS Talks Podcast
- Moments of Resilience Amid a Pandemic, Sapiens Podcast
- Full Moon over Chiapas, RadioAmbulante
- Allusionist 121. No Title
- The Invention of Race, NPR
- Episode 17 - COVID-19 and Fisheries Research, Social FISHtancing
- A breakdown of the hit crime television show Bones - what's real and what's fiction!, That Anthro Podcast
- Channel Islands Archaeology with Dr. Torben Rick, That Anthro Podcast
2020-11-13
online resource to explore for anthropology
Maybe this source will present good things to share with students and colleagues now or in future years.
Used in conjunction with Wikipedias in multiple languages, this concentration of anthropology presentations will be a place to explore from time to time.
_________________________________________
OARR: Open Anthropology Research Repository is the free, publicly available anthropology resource where you can find and share research.
2020-07-19
Dogs sniffing our (human) bones from centuries ago
Excerpt from "Archaeology Dogs Can Help Scholars Sniff Out the Past"
A dog's nose performs at least 10,000 times better than ours. Specifically, dogs pick up on low-molecular-weight compounds that easily evaporate at room temperature and often carry an odor—what scientists call volatile organic compounds. Canines can detect one such part in every trillion.
As a result, dogs have demonstrated uncanny olfactory abilities. They have sniffed out melanoma skin cancer in humans and detected pregnancy in cows just by picking up scents in their bodily fluids.
So, what exactly are canines detecting at archaeological digs? "Our dogs are not actually searching for bones," Glavaš emphasizes. "They are searching for the molecules of human decomposition."
As a result, dogs have demonstrated uncanny olfactory abilities. They have sniffed out melanoma skin cancer in humans and detected pregnancy in cows just by picking up scents in their bodily fluids.
So, what exactly are canines detecting at archaeological digs? "Our dogs are not actually searching for bones," Glavaš emphasizes. "They are searching for the molecules of human decomposition."
2020-06-30
Stories told by trash of the ancestors, digging on Mackinac Island
Literally salvage archaeology in two senses of the term: quick work at the time of major construction to salvage social and cultural information from the exposed ground, and also salvage as in 'junk yard' salvaging value from what has been discarded.
This article describes the work undertaken as part of the relocation of the island airstrip.
2020-06-26
language as political hot-potato that is hard to handle (English graveyard, Gaelic text)
excerpt from Church of England refuses to allow foreign language on a gravestone, calling it a "political statement"
...the Church of England pushed back again when they saw the planned inscription on the cross: "In ár gcroíthe go deo," which means, "In our hearts forever" in the Irish language. This didn't seem particularly radical, especially as there are already Welsh inscriptions in the same cemetery. But once again, the diocesan advisory committee denied the family's headstone proposal. "Given the passions and feelings connected with the use of Irish Gaelic," said a Church judge who is also a local government judge, "There is a sad risk that the phrase would be regarded as some form of slogan or that its inclusion without translation would of itself be seen as a political statement."
After yet another appeal, the judge agreed to allow the Irish words only if they're accompanied by an English translation.
2020-06-14
excerpt, Indigenous + Scholarly lens on local life
extracted from "Indigenous Sociology for Social Impact" by Zuleyka Zevallos [The Sociological Review]
...While sociology largely ignores Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives, Associate Professor Butler shows that the way in which we teach, research and discuss Indigenous experiences are framed through a White Western perspective that undervalues the complex cultures, spiritualities and social realities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Non-Aboriginal sociologists focus on written texts that exclude Indigenous people, ignoring oral traditions and seeking to mediate Indigenous experiences through White authority.
=-=-= comment:
Although the subject and context is different, there seems to a parallel impasse between campus-based scholars and their colleagues of the same training but working on applied/practicing project: academic thinkers seek grant support for wide engagement while applied thinkers seek client support for matters defined by contract - the former uses cases studies to get at larger questions, while the latter uses larger questions to frame specific instances to grapple with. Likewise of indigenous knowledge keepers versus outsider scholars there is an impasse as well as intersection. While both may engage in the same subject, the standpoints and purposes differ. Academics see the fieldwork subject as an illustration of wider things, while local experts see the subject as inseparable from the names, places, and lives touched by that subject.
2020-06-04
Britain's "Pompeii" time capsule, the Bronze Age site at Must Farm
Awarded the 2020 Antiquities prize for newly published and open access article, "The Must Farm pile-dwelling settlement."
The article provides a site overview and the current interpretations of the archaeology alongside discussing the material found during the 2015-16 excavations.
See https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2019.38
or look at Facebook for updates to the project, https://www.facebook.com/MustFarmArchaeology/
2020-05-14
reading - archaeology pages at Smithsonian Magazine
The section devoted to archaeology stories is at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/archaeology/
Some of the titles include the following. -- [fall 2019 to spring 2020]
Treasure Trove of Artifacts Illustrates Life in a Lost Viking Mountain Pass
In Groundbreaking Find, Three Kinds of Early Humans Unearthed Living Together in South Africa
A Mysterious 25,000-Year-Old Structure Built of the Bones of 60 Mammoths
Divers Recover More Than 350 Artifacts From the HMS 'Erebus' Shipwreck
Angkor Wat May Owe Its Existence to an Engineering Catastrophe
The Best Board Games of the Ancient World
To Craft Cutting Tools, Neanderthals Dove for Clam Shells on the Ocean Floor
Twelve Fascinating Finds Revealed in 2019
Archaeologists Are Unearthing the Stories of the Past Faster Than Ever Before
Oldest Known Seawall Discovered Along Submerged Mediterranean Villages
In Groundbreaking Find, Three Kinds of Early Humans Unearthed Living Together in South Africa
A Mysterious 25,000-Year-Old Structure Built of the Bones of 60 Mammoths
Divers Recover More Than 350 Artifacts From the HMS 'Erebus' Shipwreck
Angkor Wat May Owe Its Existence to an Engineering Catastrophe
The Best Board Games of the Ancient World
To Craft Cutting Tools, Neanderthals Dove for Clam Shells on the Ocean Floor
Twelve Fascinating Finds Revealed in 2019
Archaeologists Are Unearthing the Stories of the Past Faster Than Ever Before
Oldest Known Seawall Discovered Along Submerged Mediterranean Villages
2020-04-29
Language listening - ear for regional accents
A 5 min. stand-up comedy routine: regional USA accents by Fred Armisen, pretty impressive, https://youtu.be/G72tZdjnS2A
- Good for people with an ear for languages; and for people learning USA lingua-culture.
2020-04-27
online Anthropology encyclopedia
2020-03-24
exploring anthropology's view, several short videos
from Dr. Robert Borofsky at Center for Public Anthropology, March 24, 2020
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Public Anthropology
c/o 45-045 Kamehameha Hwy., Kaneohe, HI 96744
2020-03-17
Hey, be careful where you point thing [camera lens]
Article told from the point of view of people being recorded on camera or video camcorder: many considerations for the person waving the equipment around!
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Seven insights for photojournalists from those on the other side of the lens
---subheadings
Actions over aesthetics
Expectations grow with experience
Representativeness over impact
Be more than just a fly on the wall
Privacy was more of a concern for older adults compared to younger ones.
Safety in numbers
There's no right to privacy in public — but people don't always understand that
45 years of fieldwork --documenting Japanese rural life in Kyushu since the 1970s
This newly released documentary will interest students of ethnography, not just those keen on life in Japan.
It is the first edition looking back at Joy Hendry's 45 years of anthropology field work in rural Japan (near Fukuoka), recorded during her fall 2019 return there in this documentary (later this year an enhanced version will be released, she sasys); about 45 minutes in length, Here is part of her email message on March 15, 2020 to the East Asia Anthropology listserv, forwarded with her permission. The idea of fieldwork scholars making a recap of their projects and career this way in visual form sets a good example to follow.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
...how we did anthropology in those days, and how things in rural Japan have changed, a film my son made last year when I went to return some family trees and a village chart to the people I worked with in 1975 will give you an idea. The film still has a few glitches, but might be interesting, especially as many of us are virtually housebound at present. https://youtu.be/x7qptoXqnhE "Understanding Japanese Culture - 45 years researching a village in rural Japan"
2020-03-03
the 100 languages as of 2020
Something like 100 languages have written form to go with them. The other 6800 that remain on Earth are spoken-only.
This visual represenation of the biggest number of language speakers includes some explanation and discussion.
Seeing the reverse - least number of speakers - in visual form wold be good, too!
One of the easily overlooked features of the (English language) Wikipedia is the sidebar at lower left in which a given topic is shown with hotlinks to all the other language-versions of Wikipedia, when that topic is also available there. Some subjects have lots of corresponding articles; others have few. In some cases the biggest number of Wikipedia articles (found in English, Dutch, German) provide outline and some content for the other languages. But in other cases the article is composed from scratch, using supporting documents of that other language, with little or no reference to the English or another source article.
2020-02-16
Native American; paying attention to something besides capitalism
as an organizing principle for social life and livelihoods,
2020-02-13
Internment in concentration camps - the USA in WWII-era, but also Pres. Trump's Mexican border
Lest we forget:
One of the annual photo contest winners was this aerial view of the WWII-era Topaz concentration camp near Delta, Utah. Image description by photographer by Chang Kyun Kim follows. For anthropology colleagues teaching complex societies, this instance is one of the many instances of harm to remember. Today there are the USA camps near the Mexican border, both in USA and with the coercion of the Mexican government also based on Mexican land. And there are also the industrial scale and logic of the Chinese concentration camps in Xinjiang, filled with China's own citizens who follow the way of Islam, chiefly among the Uyghur-Chinese.
see also an earlier project by another social observer, the award-winning documentary, "Resistance at Tule Lake," http://www.resistanceattulelake.com
Image Description: The lower part of the image shows the massive grids where the prison barracks of Topaz War Relocation Center that incarcerated 10,000 Japanese people living in U.S. were constructed. I tried to show the long lasting artifact and the harsh landscape that surrounds the camp site. It was taken with my drone in Nov 2019 in Delta, Utah.
This is part of a series (description by photographer follows).
This is part of a series (description by photographer follows).
Series Description: This series is about Japanese internment camps that were built in remote and harsh areas of the United States during the Second World War. These camps imprisoned 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry - more than 60% of them were U.S. citizens.
Working on the project reminded me of the racial antagonism we have witnessed in recent history, and led me to consider how radically our view can alter when war and terror affect our lives. History can always be repeated if not properly recalled or told. The pictures here were taken between 2018 and '19 in California, Arizona and Utah. For the aerial shots, I used a drone to capture the camp sites - these locations are so harsh and remote that no one would try building anything here.
2020-02-03
Photography for seeing archaeology
Article from the folks at "the UK's Pompeii," bronze-age Must Farm archaeology project.
2019-11-13
archaeology all around you
1) bombing rubble from Liverpool that makes up the Crosby beach, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/liverpool-beach-war-archaeology
2) recent book about "mudlarks" of London's low-tide river Thames who are registered with the bureau for overseeing cultural properties; bits of the past that wash up or erode into plain view become the treasure that trained eyes pick up,
author interview, https://www.npr.org/2019/11/10/777336935/londons-mudlark-pulls-treasure-from-the-thames
ebook link, https://www.amazon.com/Mudlark-Search-Londons-Along-Thames-ebook/dp/B07DP6R4Q1/ref=sr_1_1
and 3) Nazca, Peru is the location of 1000 year old burials that have mummified from the climate's low-humidity, but were desecrated by robbers in the 1920s. This 1.9 minute video introduces the cultural site that has been prepared to allow visitors to view a few examples of the bodies at rest.
2019-10-31
forensic anthro - 1 of 6 programs in USA
Story about the field of forensic anthropology from Michigan State University weekly newsletter,
2019-09-19
Such pyramids of solid waste - or Ziggurat?
Exemplar from India's capital city, probably composed of the "11 per centers" who are Middle Class and above and who are accustomed to buy, consume, and discard; repeat at will.
2019-06-30
online textbook, Biological Anthropology (lab)
via the message board of the American Anthropological Association on 30 June 2019,
...LibreTexts just harvested Alex A. G. Taub's Biological Anthropology Laboratory Activities, a free Open Educational Resource (OER). Labs include: Identifying Bones, Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium, Primates, Bone Injuries, Early, Middle, and Recent Hominid Cranium Comparison Checklists.
The LibreTexts platform makes it easier to customize.
2019-06-22
languages of Australia - last chance, Miriwoong
video story via BBC in June 2019 about the people, places, and language of Miriwoong.
2019-06-13
overview - Britain's Bronze-Age "Pompeii" excavated, first synthesis of the pieces
[copied from Facebook page of Must Farm Archaeology 13 June 2019]
We are excited to share our first formal article on the Must Farm pile-dwelling settlement! The piece, published in Antiquity, is Open Access and completely free to download. We wanted to provide an overview of the site, incorporate information emerging from post-excavation and share our current interpretations of the archaeology.
We discuss the background to the latest excavations, describe some of the material recovered and detail the evidence that suggests the settlement had a short lifespan before its destruction in a large fire.
In the coming days we'll also share a new Post-Excavation Diary where we discuss the future of the post-excavation and the next stages in the publication process.
Article Link, https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2019.38
2019-05-30
close-up look at Orangutans of Sumatra
Just 6,000 left on Planet Earth and 97% shared DNA to human DNA, as told in this 11 minute story that makes use of the tiny action cameras for a close-up view, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oir_PSJpbAA
| | The seventh of the GoPro HERO3+ Adventure Series. What we do for orangutans, we do for ourselves. Peter Pratje, of the Frankfurt Zoological Society, introduces us to our orangutan family and reveals how we, as individuals, can help prevent their imminent extinction. Shot 100% on the HD HERO3+® camera from http://GoPro.com. For more information ... www.youtube.com |
2019-05-22
intersection Mikmaq x English
Canada story on the radio 22 May 2019:
https://youtu.be/99-LoEkAA3w [blackbird sung to showcase indigenous language]
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/05/22/blackbird-mikmaq-indigenous-language
2019-04-27
roots of literacy, writing systems, society's changes that follow
Here is a modest introduction to the subject matter of writing systems and written languages, http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190426-the-british-librarys-exhibition-of-writing
2019-04-18
early Japan ethnography 1950s-60s (taidan), Plath - Vogel
With permission of the Midwest Japan Seminar, Japan Foundation and host at Ohio Wesleyan University, here is the Youtube link to the hour-long conversation recently between long-time friends and colleagues, Prs David Plath and Ezra Vogel. Hearing first-hand of their early years in the field and in Japanese Studies circles is eye-opening for one and all, no matter your scholarly generation or genealogy. Feel free to share widely with others.
2019-04-09
new book, "An Anthropology of Anthropology"
This 372 page book comes from an anthropologist in Hawai'i. The PDF can be downloaded at no cost. A print edition can be ordered after June 1 at the latest. His subject is "public anthropology" - using anthropology methods and data to solve social problems with the environment, society, justice, food, education, health, and so on. He says that anthropology has many insights, but usually only is a spectator to watch the world; not to apply the insight to solve big or complicated problems.
Some of the testimonials from noted anthropologists, selectively appended below, give some sense of the book.
<><><>text and link of the book announcement<><><>
| ...to download a free (open access) copy of An Anthropology of Anthropology as well as see what 35 prominent anthropologists from Australia, Canada, France, Norway, United Kingdom and United States say about it (including Philippe Bourgois, Paul Farmer, Didier Fassin, George Marcus, and Laura Nader). https://books.publicanthropology.org/an-anthropology-of-anthropology.html This link can be used by anyone, anytime, anywhere to freely download the book. Please forward this link to interested colleagues and students. If you lose the link, you can readily obtain it from the new, updated publicanthropology website at www.publicanthropology.org. |
Public Anthropology: An Open Access Series
c/o 45-045 Kamehameha Hwy., Kaneohe, HI 96744
= APPENDED NOTES =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= [some comments by well-known anthropology colleagues]
Starting with a critical state of the art, he then defends and illustrates an alternative paradigm, which would involve a radical transformation of the way in which the academia considers its responsibility toward society. Rich in numerous case studies,
==========careerism in which quantity has replaced quality, in which creativity and path-breaking ideas have become a relic of the past. Borofsky makes a strong plea for redirecting anthropology into the world beyond the academy that is our object of study in order to produce knowledge that has a real impact on others
==========at a time when it needs to convey its insights to those beyond the discipline. It needs to ask big questions that matter to others. Rob Borofsky asks why cultural anthropology falls short of this potential. In his search to answer this question, he challenges the university-based contexts that shape the field—what == Note: jirei? if not rooted on campus then what alt vantage points.
==========written almost nothing about conditions of work, patronage, funding, institutional hierarchy in the academy—that is, the power relations under which anthropological writing is actually produced. Robert Borofsky is one of the few who's had the requisite courage to do so.
==========Borofsky catches a sea change in the discipline's perception of itself.
==========inclined to agree on the paramount need for the field to work at building an explicit consensus about what an anthropology degree signals to the world and also agree that the standards of accountability we set for ourselves go well beyond biblio-metrics to include the ways in which our work contributes to a more just and sustainable global community. EDWARD LIEBOW, Executive Director of AAA
==========the faith that Rob Borofsky places in what anthropologists can do in bringing professional and activist roles together—what I termed in the 1990s 'circumstantial activism'—for the benefit of both publics and anthropology.
==========moving past the "do no harm" seemingly neutral stance of the academy, to a more proactive "do good!" model of anthropology with no apologies.
==========He asks tough questions about individual accountability, ethics, and self-interests. Has anthropology made real intellectual breakthroughs in recent decades? He confronts anthropologists asking them to reassess and to renew our social contract with the public good
=========="Reach out to others or else become irrelevant!" is Rob Borofsky's take home message for American cultural anthropologists. He believes the discipline has shot itself in the foot: producing abstruse publications on topics of little value to the broader world, read only by an insular anthropological audience, and written primarily for the sake of narrow professional advancement.
=========="The only people who see the whole picture are the ones who step outside the frame." Sir Salman Rushdie, British-Indian novelist and essayist
2019-03-30
since 2012, the "Great Pompeii Project"
The website gives a glimpse of the locations and views open to the public. These days 30 buildings may be seen up close, compared to the 60 back in 1956 and compared to 10 in 2010. The Great Pompeii Project has succeeded in stabilizing the excavated spaces so that visitors may see some of the city buried by volcanic eruption almost 2000 years previously. Perhaps a drone recording will be added to the website to give a virtual visit to distant and nearby people who are curious about the society long ago.
2019-03-04
Nitty-gritty, archaeology methods *after* the excavating is done
The ongoing coverage of the UK's "Pompeii" site at Must Farm bronze age (wetland) site is being reported on their Facebook webpage brief and on their website in detail.
This three-part series covers the specialist scrutiny of samples and artifacts to shed new light on the people and events surrounding the fire and escape from this habitation long years ago.
Part 1, Post-Ex Diary 8: Specialist Analyses Part One
http://www.mustfarm.com/post-dig/post-ex-diary-8-specialist-analyses-part-one/
Part 2, Post-Ex Diary 9: Specialist Analyses Part Two
http://www.mustfarm.com/post-dig/post-ex-diary-9-specialist-analyses-part-two/
Part 3, Waterlogged and Charred Wood; Ceramic; Bone; Fabrics
http://www.mustfarm.com/post-dig/post-ex-diary-10-specialist-analyses-part-three/
http://www.mustfarm.com/post-dig/post-ex-diary-8-specialist-analyses-part-one/
Part 2, Post-Ex Diary 9: Specialist Analyses Part Two
http://www.mustfarm.com/post-dig/post-ex-diary-9-specialist-analyses-part-two/
Part 3, Waterlogged and Charred Wood; Ceramic; Bone; Fabrics
http://www.mustfarm.com/post-dig/post-ex-diary-10-specialist-analyses-part-three/
2019-02-06
linguistic anthropology> Project online to record all the many languages rooted to a place
[excerpt from article linked, below] ...2019 is the UNESCO International Year of Indigenous Languages. What is Wikitongues doing in coordination with it?
The International Year of Indigenous Languages (#IYIL2019) was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly as a way of making 2019 a platform for promoting linguistic diversity and the recent groundswell of activism to sustain it. This was accomplished thanks to the hard work of indigenous activists who spent a long time lobbying for this level of recognition. UNESCO is stewarding the year-long campaign, since they’re the branch most concerned with cultural preservation. Wikitongues was brought on board to help bridge the gap between UNESCO and the grassroots organizations, so we helped build a coalition of civil society organizations from the around the world to amplify the spirit of the year.
Wikitongues will be working to encourage people to use their languages publicly, especially online, so we’ll be designing and copromoting fun and creative social media campaigns that do just that, such as the Mother Language Meme challenge, which is self-explanatory, or Indigenous Language Challenge, which encourages nonindigenous people to learn indigenous languages in solidarity, and indigenous heritage speakers to reclaim their ancestral languages.
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The wiki-tongues project, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/wikitongues-documenting-languages
=-= See also, 2007, K. David Harrison, When Languages Die
<>Similarly eye-opening is the story of his LivingTongues.org research center, (Iron Bound Films) The Linguists, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Linguists
<>Then also, see PBS.org, Language Matters (2015), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_Matters_with_Bob_Holman
2019-02-02
museum care - how to clean a totem pole
Major caretaking of collection of totem poles in NYC at the American Museum of Natural History, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-to-conserve-totem-poles
2019-01-18
your language shapes what you pay attention to (or you are blind to)
This November 2017 T.E.D. talk about languages and relativity of one's perspective in the world includes many vivid illustrations to show the way that your language shines a light (or casts a shadow) on social interactions and relationship to the environment, too.
After watch the presentation a Russian speaking colleague observes (posted with permission): Of course, each language, in turn, is a product of the history, geography, culture and mentality of that particular ethnic group and thus, reflection thereof. For instance, one of the differences between English and Russian is that in Russian it's very common to use impersonal idioms akin to "it rains," even in situations where there clearly is a traceable responsible source of action or at least, there should be. So, from the language one often gets an impression that something of a personal, political, etc. nature just happened so -- sort of like a natural occurrence. By contrast, in English the indication of who is the action subject is typically much more evident. That definitely reflects the centuries-old collective/communal/totalitarian culture where individual responsibility is neither common, nor encouraged, whereas in the lands of English language the mentality builds around individual rights and responsibilities.
2019-01-03
ancient human DNA as window on distribution and timeline of related peoples
At the end of 2018 this article provides recap of major insights produced or suggested from labwork on samples of ancient human remains.
One author, David Reich, has compared the powers of this new technology to the breakthroughs offered by Carbon 14 dating of organic materials excavated. Instead of induction and deduction from the layering of deposited materials to estimate dates, now some precision was possible. In the same way, DNA offers a sharper view of relatedness of peoples ancient and modern; it allows previous conclusions about (paleo) archaeological locations to be revisited, too.
Reich's 2018 book, Who We Are and How We Got Here, offers chapter by chapter visions of the past in various corners of the world.
2018-08-16
linguists? English spelling quirks... what if
quoting from boingboing.net today: what if English were to follow the Dutch example 200 years ago when they changed spellings to get rid of exceptions to the rule, so that each spelling combination had only one pronunciation.
Japanese is a hard language to learn, but one of the easy parts is its generally phonetic consistency. English is also hard language to learn, and it's made harder because letters and letter combinations are pronounced differently depending on the word they are in. An example that illustrates this is "ghoti," a made up word that is pronounced "fish." The "gh" is pronounced like the "f" sound in "tough," the "o" is the "i" sound in "women," "ti" is the "sh" sound in "fiction."
Aaron Alon made a video that shows what English would sound like if each vowel had one, and only one, pronunciation. The result sounds like an American pretending to have a weird pan-European accent. https://youtu.be/A8zWWp0akUU
Aaron Alon made a video that shows what English would sound like if each vowel had one, and only one, pronunciation. The result sounds like an American pretending to have a weird pan-European accent. https://youtu.be/A8zWWp0akUU
 | youtu.be Learn more about Aaron Alon's music, writing, and films at aaronalon.com. | |
2018-08-06
online course to see the length and breadth of Cross-cultural Methods
[excerpt of webpage, http://hraf.yale.edu/ccc/] Introducing Cross-Cultural Research
This online course is a brief introduction to the world of ethnography-based cross-cultural research. The course outlines the logic of cross-cultural research and various aspects of the research process from start to finish, including the steps involved in framing a research question, deriving hypotheses from theory, design of measures, coding procedures, sampling, reliability, and the use of statistics to analyze results.
2018-07-17
Looking for Iron Age locations
The dry summer days show off structures ordinarily not visible at ground level, or even like this from the air when all is well watered at other seasons and even during the summer of a typical rainfall year. Here are a few structures in the vicinity of Eire's giant New Grange stone building of millennia ago, https://www.flickr.com/photos/mythicalireland/41635425520/in/explore-2018-07-16/
No doubt these will contribute to the mapped locations and finds across the hilltops through the British Isles around the time that implements and weapons of iron overtook the weaker points of bronze (admixing copper with tin) and before that the artifacts of copper alone.
| I was at the centre of a major archaeological discovery in the Boyne Valley last week. Using a drone, I found a massive crop mark which is believed to be the footprint of a huge late Neolithic henge or enclosure. I was flying with Ken Williams at the time. The markings are only visible because of the prolonged drought in the area. | |
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2018-07-12
dry weather reveals subsurface structures (aerial view; drone uses)
Low tide lines in the long-term water cycle, as well as droughts bring opportunities for Space Archaeologists and aerial spotting of human activity in places normally obscured by water tideline or surface vegetation. Here are examples of crop marks in the fields around Wales:
Cropmarks 2018 (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales)
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