#anthropology roundup: “The Ethical Battle Over Ancient DNA…

The Ethical Battle Over Ancient DNA

A new controversy has arisen over recent scientific analyses conducted on ancient Native American remains that were uncovered in the 1890s at Pueblo Bonito, an archaeological site located in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Andrew Kearns/Flickr

In February, scientists published a critically important contribution to our understanding of the ancient Pueblo peoples of the American Southwest. A 14-member interdisciplinary team, including anthropologists, archaeologists, and geneticists, succeeded in extracting and sequencing DNA from the remains of numerous individuals who were apparently elite people at Chaco Canyon, the wondrous archaeological complex in northwest New Mexico. In its heyday, about A.D. 800 to A.D. 1150, Chaco was at the center of one of the richest and most sophisticated civilizations to grace North America before European colonists arrived in the 16th century. Its cultural influence spread throughout the Four Corners region of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado, and possibly as far south as Mexico.

SLA 2017 Undergraduate Student Essay Contest

Every year the Society for Linguistic Anthropology (SLA) confers an award for a distinguished undergraduate research paper.  Selected winners will be awarded $500, a certificate of accomplishment, and a $300 travel grant to the AAA Annual Meeting in Washington DC, November 29 – Dec 3 2017.  In addition, the winning essay will be considered for publication in our signature journal, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology.  

The Sound and Fury of the Huey Helicopter

What is the most iconic military vehicle ever created? For both visual and acoustic reasons, I’d suggest it’s the Huey helicopter of the Vietnam War era.

World War I gave us biplanes for the first time, World War II and the Korean War gave us the Jeep—now part of American pop and recreational culture—and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars gave us Predator drones. But nothing tops the Huey, if you ask me.

Visually, the helicopter looks vaguely like a dragonfly, a grasshopper, or some other large insect with big eyes. Painted black or dark green, it is frighteningly utilitarian, if not sinister.

Scientists have discovered some of the world’s largest dinosaur tracks—measuring as long as the average person is tall—in western Australia.

The 5.5-foot-long tracks likely belonged to a long-necked, small-headed sauropod. They’re part of an unusually diverse array of dinosaur tracks imprinted into the rocks on Australia’s Dampier Peninsula.

USU anthropology museum event to highlight WWI centennial
The Herald Journal
One hundred years ago, soldiers training at Utah State Agricultural College would gather in the south wing of Old Main, then the college chapel. That wing, now the USU Museum of Anthropology, will unveil an exhibit Saturday commemorating more of Cache .

The Anthropology of Astronautics
Executive Intelligence Review (EIR)
Astronautics, a publication of the American Rocket Society, originally published “The Anthropology of Astronautics” by Krafft A. Ehricke, in its November 1957 issue. Astronautics described Ehricke’s article as “A searching examination by one of the .

Appalachian’s Department of Anthropology to host panel on Middle East; two guest professors will be featured April 5
Appalachian State University
BOONE, N.C.—On April 5, the Department of Anthropology at Appalachian State University will host guest speakers Dr. Zainab Saleh and Dr. Ziad Abu-Rish for a panel discussion titled “Perspectives from the Middle East: Iraq and the Levant.”

Heather York: Forensic Anthropologist & Cultural AnthropologyFaculty
Southern New Hampshire University
Looking forward, she envisioned working for a nonprofit in a role that allowed her to use her anthropology background but “not in an explicitly academic way,” she said. York made her way to New York City, where she lived for a few years, but did no

New Lessons On Ancient Survival Methods
WBUR
The caveman professor, Bill Schindler, is teaching millennials to drop the phone and thrive in the wild. He’s with us. Bill Schindler, an associate professor of anthropology at Washington College, instructs alumnus Mike Whisenant, class of 2016, in ..

Novelist Zora Neale Hurston was a cultural anthropologist first
Newsworks.org
Before novelist Zora Neale Hurston shook up the fiction-writing world with her 1937 classic “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” she was doing things her way in the field of anthropology. Hurston collected songs and folklore in Florida and Louisiana, where

Kendzior: In Defense of Complaining

This was meant to be a book review. Instead, it’s an essay about the power—and importance—of complaining.[1]

The book under consideration here is Sarah Kendzior’s The View from Flyover Country, which was published in 2015. In case you don’t know, Kendzior is an anthropologist-turned-journalist whose academic work on authoritarianismturned out to be just slightly relevant to the recent turn of events here in the US (and elsewhere).

People ask me all the time what you can do with a degree in anthropology. Now, thanks to Kendzior, I can suggest that students study the intricacies of autocracies and use their analytical skills to warn fellow citizens of the impending erosion of constitutional democracies.[2] Just for starters.

Lutte avec frappe, or “wrestling with punches,” the most popular sport in Senegal, adopted international anti-doping rules in 2015. Mark Hann

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