Archaeologists unearth 1,000-year-old child mummies in Peru
Archaeologists in Lima’s oldest neighborhoods have unearthed four remarkably well-preserved mummified children, believed to be at least 1,000 years old. The children were discovered alongside an adult near a small hill, potentially leading to a hidden temple dating back around 3,500 years...
Sand makes up coastal bioinfrastructures in Guyana, as Sarah Vaughn shows in a recent essay, https://roadsides.net/vaughn-010/. Groynes used to prevent erosion "reinforce the shoreline’s existing sandy terrain." These groynes themselves contain sand. The essay is part of a special issue entitled "Bioinfrastructures" co-edited by Raúl Acosta and S.AND team member Lukas Ley. Check out the full open access issue here: https://roadsides.net/collection-no-010/
Through the term "bioinfrastructures," Ley and @raulaco reckon with the surge in projects to (re)create lively urban landscapes: While this shows that "infrastructure is never just a single entity or one discrete thing but rather an evolving set of multispecies and material relations," they also interrogate the ambivalent politics of bioinfrastructures.
What is the significance of bioinfrastructures "for larger political projects, emancipatory movements and Indigenous sovereignty?"
If you like economic anthropology/sociology & are interested in the work of artists, then Alison Gerber's concise & highly readable, The Work of Art: Value in Creative Careers (2017) is for you. Assessing how value is seen in (manly US) art worlds, Gerber doesn't model or use aggregated statistics, but actually asks artists & reports/reflects on what they tell her. the result is compelling & informative!
From a human behavior analysis standpoint, this image is absolutely fascinating. There is so much information about human behavior that can be extracted from the data represented here
EDIT: OMFG 1701 IS THE DESIGNATION OF THE STAR SHIP ENTERPRISE (NCC-1701). TREKKIES WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?!? :zerotwoevillaugh:
Ancient DNA reveals early migration of indigenous Mexicans to California 5,200 years ago
Researchers led by Nathan Nakatsuka from the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School challenge established theories about the migration patterns and linguistic diversity of ancient populations in California...
Scottish social anthropologist and folklorist James George Frazer died #OTD in 1941.
He is best known for his influential work "The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion," which explores the similarities among magical and religious beliefs across diverse cultures. Frazer proposed that human belief progressed through three stages: primitive magic, replaced by religion, and finally replaced by science.
Deep in #Papua New Guinea, the speakers of #Tayap have stopped using their native tongue. In 'A Death in the Rainforest', an anthropologist recounts his journey over three decades to find out why.
I love this phrase from the article: "The mortality of states". We love to read about ancient civilizations, but never pause to think that our present civilizations will also die.
Why societies grow more fragile and vulnerable to collapse as time passes
We know that great apes are super-smart, but, even so, wow: Wounded wild orangutan Rakus "repeatedly applied the liquid onto his cheek for seven minutes. Rakus then smeared the chewed leaves onto his wound until it was fully covered. He continued to feed on the plant for over 30 minutes... researchers saw no sign of infection and the wound closed within five days." https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68942123#primates#orangutan#animals#animalcognition#anthropology#zoology
Cassava: The perilous past and promising future of a toxic but nourishing crop. An anthropology professor shares what he's learned from "studying cassava gardens on the Amazon River and its myriad tributaries in Peru."
@TheConversationUS reports: "Cassava’s many assets would seem to make it the ideal crop. But there’s a problem: Cassava is highly poisonous."
FREE community #fediscience please BOOST!
🌘TOMORROW 🌑
Tues May 7, 18:30 (BST)
with Will Buckner
LIVE @UCLanthropology and on ZOOM
'The sensory ecology of deception in human societies'
Everybody welcome FREE, LIVE and online! Just turn up!
Evolutionary anthropologist Will Buckner will be speaking LIVE in the Daryll Forde Room, 2nd Floor of the UCL Anthropology Dept, 14 Taviton St, London WC1H 0BW
**NB We can now use the front door in Taviton St again **
You can also join us on ZOOM (ID 384 186 2174 passcode Wawilak)
3 position in #Anthropology / #Ethnology at my alma mater Charles University in Prague (Institute of Ethnology and Central European and Balkan Studies)
Recent research challenges long-held beliefs about the decomposition of human brains after death.
Contrary to long-held beliefs that the brain swiftly decomposes following demise, this study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, demonstrates that human brains can endure for millennia under certain conditions...