Anthropology posts
- May 3, 2009
- 04:00 AM
- 1,540 views
The development of agriculture by the Attini tribe over the past 50 million years.
by Bryan Perkins in Science. Why not?
The Attini tribe rely solely on the cultivation of Fungus Gardens for food. When an Attine Daughter Queen leaves her maternal home, she must carry within her mouth a Nucleus of Fungus to serve as the Starting Culture for her new Garden (Schultz and Brady 2008).... Read more »
Mueller, U., & Rabeling, C. (2008) A breakthrough innovation in animal evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(14), 5287-5288. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0801464105
Schultz, T., & Brady, S. (2008) Major evolutionary transitions in ant agriculture. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(14), 5435-5440. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0711024105
- May 2, 2009
- 04:27 PM
- 2,471 views
what history lost, genetics tries to recover
by Greg Fish in weird things
We’ve long assumed that Africa is home to the widest genetic diversity in humans. After all, it’s our ancestral home and it only makes sense that as we spread throughout the world, the genetic variation for each culture and society eventually narrowed. This is why the recent headline about a 10 year study by a team of[...]...... Read more »
Tishkoff, S., Reed, F., Friedlaender, F., Ehret, C., Ranciaro, A., Froment, A., Hirbo, J., Awomoyi, A., Bodo, J., Doumbo, O.... (2009) The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.1172257
- May 2, 2009
- 11:04 AM
- 1,502 views
The Blitzkrieg of Ungulates in Levant
by Johnny in Ecographica
The region of the Middle East referred to as “Levant” includes modern day Israel, Palestine and Jordon, and there are few places on earth more intensely studied by archaeologists than the birthplace of monotheistic religion. In addition to yielding a vast record of human occupation, culture and war, the archaeological sites within this region also document the decimation of several mammalian species. A couple of days ago (April 29), several Israeli scientists published an article in PLoS One........ Read more »
Tsahar, E., Izhaki, I., Lev-Yadun, S., & Bar-Oz, G. (2009) Distribution and Extinction of Ungulates during the Holocene of the Southern Levant. PLoS ONE, 4(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005316
- May 1, 2009
- 03:00 PM
- 1,708 views
High Resolution Map of Science
by Bryan Perkins in Science. Why not?
Most scientific publications today are accessed online. That is why Johan Bollen and colleagues used nearly 1 billion user interactions recorded by the scholarly web portals of some of the most significant publishers, aggregators and institutional consortia to create a high-resolution map of science in an article published on PLoS One. A first-order Markov chain was extracted from the sequence of user interactions recorded and the model was visualized as shown below to describe the relationships........ Read more »
Bollen, J., Van de Sompel, H., Hagberg, A., Bettencourt, L., Chute, R., Rodriguez, M., & Balakireva, L. (2009) Clickstream Data Yields High-Resolution Maps of Science. PLoS ONE, 4(3). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0004803
- April 30, 2009
- 02:33 AM
- 564 views
Lead fragments in hunted venison
by blgtnjew in Hominin Dental Anthropology
Technorati Tags: venison,lead,hunting So, I read a very interesting paper this week, and indeed, you must also know about it. It really has nothing to do with the premise of this blog, but forget all that. It was initially an interesting paper, because it was about residue lead bullet fragments in hunted deer, i.e. venison. I was completely unaware that so much lead is left in a carcass post cleaning and processing. Two feeds of meat, 24 hours apart, will raise blood lead concentration by a fac........ Read more »
Hunt, W., Watson, R., Oaks, J., Parish, C., Burnham, K., Tucker, R., Belthoff, J., & Hart, G. (2009) Lead Bullet Fragments in Venison from Rifle-Killed Deer: Potential for Human Dietary Exposure. PLoS ONE, 4(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005330
- April 29, 2009
- 09:39 PM
- 1,492 views
From Anonymity to Subjectivity in the Blogosphere: Post Game Analysis by BZ
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
The following is a follow up on BZ's earlier posts regarding Anonymity, Credibility, Behavior Change and other issues. BZ had posted several guest blogs here, and received useful comments from guests and other bloggers. Here, BZ summarizes and responds.
I am in the position of grading BZ for this work. His grade will be based on how many comments he gets, so please help him out!1 Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Batts, S., Anthis, N., & Smith, T. (2008) Advancing Science through Conversations: Bridging the Gap between Blogs and the Academy. PLoS Biology, 6(9). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0060240
- April 29, 2009
- 10:00 AM
- 1,141 views
Teaching Behaviours in Non-mammalian Animals
by Bryan Perkins in Science. Why not?
Ants never cease to amaze me. Published in Nature in 2006 Nigel R. Franks and Tom Richardson at the University of Bristol displayed ants of the species Temnothorax albipennis teaching one another. The ants use a technique called tandem running, which utilizes bidirectional feedback between teacher and pupil, to lead a naive ant from the nest to food.... Read more »
Franks NR, & Richardson T. (2006) Teaching in tandem-running ants. nature, 153.
Caro TM, & Hauser MD. (1992) Is there teaching in nonhuman animals?. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 67(2), 151-174.
- April 20, 2009
- 05:07 PM
- 948 views
What’s happening in Bronze Age Thailand?
by Alison in Alison in Cambodia
Recently there have been some interesting articles trying to better understand what is happening in Bronze Age Thailand, and by extension, Bronze Age Southeast Asia. I figured writing a blog post about these articles would be a good way to start thinking through some of this data. It’s becoming more and more obvious that the [...]... Read more »
Lisa Kealhofer, & Peter Grave. (2008) Land Use, Political Complexity, and Urbanism in Mainland Southeast Asia. American Antiquity, 73(2), 200-225. DOI: http://www.saa.org/AbouttheSociety/Publications/AmericanAntiquity/Volume73Number2April2008/LandUsePoliticalComplexityandUrbanisminM/tabid/405/Default.aspx
Charles Higham, & Thomas Higham. (2009) A New Chronological Framework for Prehistoric Southeast Asia, Based on a Bayseian Model from Ban Non Wat. Antiquity, 83(319), 125-144. DOI: http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/083/ant0830125.htm
Dougald J.W. O'Reilly. (2008) Multivallate Sites and Socio-Economic Change: Thailand and Britain in their Iron Ages. Antiquity, 82(316), 377-389. DOI: http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/082/ant0820377.htm
- April 17, 2009
- 08:40 PM
- 787 views
A bit about Mycobacterium tuberculosis
by blgtnjew in Hominin Dental Anthropology
LiveJournal Tags: archaeology,bioanthropology,paleopathology,Mycobacterium tuberculosis,Atlit Yam First off, I have started using Microsoft Live Writer, part of the Windows Live suite, to blog, because I like the offline writing experience and I know my words will not get randomly erased if I accidently close the wrong tab in Firefox. Anyway, this is the initial post, so we will see how it goes. (http://www.microbelibrary.org/microbelibrary/files/ccImages/Articleimages/PatJohnson/spinal%20tube........ Read more »
Hershkovitz, I., Donoghue, H., Minnikin, D., Besra, G., Lee, O., Gernaey, A., Galili, E., Eshed, V., Greenblatt, C., Lemma, E.... (2008) Detection and Molecular Characterization of 9000-Year-Old Mycobacterium tuberculosis from a Neolithic Settlement in the Eastern Mediterranean. PLoS ONE, 3(10). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003426
- April 16, 2009
- 10:00 PM
- 1,032 views
New Study Merges Genetics, Demography and Paleoanthropology
by Johnny in Ecographica
Mitochondrial DNA from twelve Neanderthal fossil assemblages was sequenced, compared and correlated with morphological data from fossil skulls, limbs and dentary remains to render evidence for multiple demes of Neanderthals from across Asia and Europe.... Read more »
Fabre, V., Condemi, S., & Degioanni, A. (2009) Genetic Evidence of Geographical Groups among Neanderthals. PLoS ONE, 4(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005151
- April 14, 2009
- 02:52 AM
- 886 views
Male Chauvinist Chimps or the Meat Market of Public Opinion?
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
A new study in the journal PLoS One, by Cristina Gomes and Christophe Boesch of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, finally answered a question that has intrigued primatologists for nearly two decades. Do female chimpanzees preferentially mate with males who share their hunting gains with them? This hypothesis was first suggested in 1994 by Craig Stanford and Jane Goodall when they found that the best predictor for whether males would engage in a hunt or not was the presence ........ Read more »
Gomes, C., & Boesch, C. (2009) Wild Chimpanzees Exchange Meat for Sex on a Long-Term Basis. PLoS ONE, 4(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005116
- April 13, 2009
- 03:50 PM
- 178 views
Dull
by Lee Turnpenny in The Mawk Moth Profligacies
Are modern scientists dull? If so, why?... Read more »
Charlton, B. (2009) Why are modern scientists so dull? How science selects for perseverance and sociability at the expense of intelligence and creativity. Medical Hypotheses, 72(3), 237-243. DOI: 10.1016/j.mehy.2008.11.020
- April 6, 2009
- 01:28 PM
- 1,330 views
Biochar: Carbon Mitigation from the Ground Up
by TomJoe in (It's a ...) Micro World (... after all)
Was doing one of my weekly Scopus searches for new articles and came across the following review (PDF, 4 pages) on biochar, and it seems rather timely given that I've highlighted this topic recently. The title of this blog is taken from the title of the article, and it talks about the terra preta soils of the Amazon.The soils are proof of concept that burying biochar (biomass-derived charcoal) in the soils will both: increase soil productivity/fertility; and trap carbon for long periods of time ........ Read more »
Tenenbaum, D.J. (2009) Biochar: Carbon mitigation from the ground up. Environmental Health Perspectives, 117(2). DOI: http://www.ehponline.org/members/2009/117-2/innovations.html
- April 2, 2009
- 12:20 AM
- 1,745 views
Amazonian tribe is from another planet
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
A society so strange it changes what it means to be human. A culture so foreign that the ways which we know ourselves are altered. I no longer need to invoke aliens coming to Earth to imagine how one culture might find another extraterrestrial. The Pirahã will do.... Read more »
Everett, D. (2005) Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Piraha Another Look at the Design Features of Human Language. Current Anthropology, 46(4), 621-646. DOI: 10.1086/431525
- March 28, 2009
- 12:00 PM
- 1,459 views
The Rise of “Homo egocentricis”
by Johnny in Ecographica
Although it was literally a dark and stormy night, such weather conditions were but a novelty to the speaker – a scientist whom had spent the majority of his life scanning barren rocks and desiccated landscapes for fragments of fossil bone beneath the unrelenting and scorching sun of an East African desert. Yet, I can’t help but think that some level of instinctual fear naggingly tickled at his stomach as he approached the waiting crowd…
... Read more »
Reed, K. (2008) Paleoecological patterns at the Hadar hominin site, Afar Regional State, Ethiopia. Journal of Human Evolution, 54(6), 743-768. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2007.08.013
- March 25, 2009
- 07:23 AM
- 1,239 views
Opinion: Nations don't go to war over water
by Benno Hansen in Ecowar
Writer Wendy Barnaby has written an essay for academic journal Nature in stead of a book for her publisher as the conclusion on "water wars" wouldn't sell. Some facts...There are 263 cross-boundary waterways in the world. Between 1948 and 1999, cooperation over water, including the signing of treaties, far outweighed conflict over water and violent conflict in particular. Of 1,831 instances of... Read more »
Barnaby, W. (2009) Do nations go to war over water?. Nature, 458(7236), 282-283. DOI: 10.1038/458282a
- March 24, 2009
- 03:00 PM
- 1,323 views
This is not a pistic
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Luigi’s Nibble this morning prompted me to look again for one of the seminal papers in the Italian use of wild agrobiodiversity: Pistic, traditional food from Western Friuli, N.E. Italy. The abstract says:
Western Friuli, Italy, there is a small area near the town of Pordenone where an ancient rite of spring is still carried out. [...]... Read more »
Maurizio G. Paoletti, A. L. Dreon, & G. G. Lorenzoni. (1995) Pistic, traditional food from Western Friuli, N.E. Italy . Economic Botany, 49(1), 26-30. DOI: 10.1007/BF02862273
- March 19, 2009
- 04:00 PM
- 1,198 views
When and where was rice domesticated?
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
A paper by Dorian Fuller and his colleagues in this week’s Science sets out three kinds of evidence that help to pinpoint the time and place of rice domestication in eastern China. The site is Tianluoshan, just north of the current town of Hemudu on Hangzhou Bay. The water table is very high, which has [...]... Read more »
Fuller, D., & Qin, L. (2009) Water management and labour in the origins and dispersal of Asian rice. World Archaeology, 41(1), 88-111. DOI: 10.1080/00438240802668321
- March 16, 2009
- 11:30 AM
- 1,124 views
Giggles follow-up: smiling verbs and happy adjectives show facial motor resonances
by Mark D. in The Ideophone
Just a quick follow-up on my earlier post. Foroni & Semin (in press, Psychological Science) do what I hoped somebody did: examining the bodily grounding of non-ideophonic vocabulary related to emotional states. Theirs is not an imaging study like Osaka & Osaka 2005, but a study of motor resonance in facial muscles. The terms tested are action verbs (to smile; to frown) and adjectives for the corresponding emotional states (without overt facial configurational semantics), e.g. 'happy; angry&........ Read more »
Foroni, Francesco, & Semin, Gün R. (2009) Language that puts you in touch with your bodily feelings: The Multimodal Responsiveness of Affective Expressions. Psychological Science.
Osaka, Naoyki; Osaka, Mariko. (2005) Striatal reward areas activated by implicit laughter induced by mimic words in humans: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. NeuroReport, 16(15), 1621-1624. DOI: 00001756-200510170-00003
- March 14, 2009
- 10:00 AM
- 1,431 views
How to Increase Your Neuron Count
by Bryan Perkins in Science. Why not?
"The recent discovery that the hippocampus is able to generate new neurons throughout a human’s lifespan has changed the way we think about the mechanisms of psychiatric disorders and drug addiction," says Wen Jian and colleagues in a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation in 2005. ... Read more »
Jiang W, Zhang Y, Xiao L, Cleemput JV, Ji S-P, Bai G, & Zhang X. (2005) Cannabinoids promote embryonic and adult hippocampus neurogenesis and produce anxiolytic- and antidepressant-like effects. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 3104-3116.
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