#Anthropology roundup: Fieldwork in a Time of Coronavirus (a new series by anthro{dendum} blog))

Anthrodendum welcomes guest blogger Josh Babcock. Ph.D. Candidate in Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Chicago. His research examines the public co-construction of language and race in the making of a multimodal image of Singapore.

Anthrodendum welcomes guest blogger Christian Elliott, an undergraduate senior majoring in cultural anthropology at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois.

Video conferencing and the limits of representability

by Christian Elliott

It is Friday the 13th of March. Not a particularly auspicious day, as it would turn out, though I’ve never been particularly superstitious. I am sitting at a long seminar table in a small classroom in Old Main, the pale-yellow stone bell tower-topped academic building at the center of Augustana College’s wooded campus in western Illinois.


What Anthropology Teaches Us about COVID-19: A Conversation with Physician-Anthropologist, Dr. Bjørn Westgard

Recently, I checked in with Dr. Bjørn Westgard, to see how he was doing. Back in the ‘90s, Bjørn was enrolled in a wildly

The late 19th and early 20th centuries were a time of unprecedented shock and trauma for many Africans. European invaders appeared, armed with guns for which African spears were no match, and they killed or imprisoned those who got in their way, forced people into labor, and established colonial rule over new countries that they created de novo.

Coronavirus Is Killing the Hope of Asylum

A s orders to “stay at home” swept across the globe in March and April, some questioned what those mandates meant

Do I Have Microremains in My Teeth?

Southwestern Finland isn’t a great place for archaeologists to find anything other than the sturdiest of remains. The pine needles that fall to the boreal forest floor make the soils acidic, eating up whatever might be buried in them. And the freezing cold winters, combined with the spring thaws, make artifacts crumble quickly over time.

Archaeologists unearth an ancient habitation site in Western Mongolia, seeking clues to the early history of domestic horses. William Taylor

This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons.

In an increasingly urbanized world, few people still ride horses for reasons beyond sport or leisure. However, on horseback, people, goods, and ideas moved across vast distances, shaping the power structures and social systems of the premechanized era. From the trade routes of the Silk Road or the great Mongol Empire to the equestrian nations of the American Great Plains, horses were the engines of the ancient world.

Where, when, and how did humans first domesticate horses?

Tracing the origins of horse domestication in the ancient era has proven to be an exceedingly difficult task. Horses—and the people who care for them—tend to live in remote, dry, or cold grassland regions, moving often and leaving only ephemeral marks in the archaeological record. In the steppes, pampas, and plains of the world, historic records are often ambiguous or absent, archaeological sites are poorly investigated, and research is published in a variety languages.

Longer overlap for modern humans and Neanderthals

Modern humans began to edge out the Neanderthals in Europe earlier than previously thought.
Berlin’s Humboldt Forum opened its doors to the public for a special event in 2019, even as construction on the building continued. David von Becker/SHF

Art historian Bénédicte Savoy didn’t mince her words. “The Humboldt Forum,” she told the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in 2017, “is like Chernobyl,” referencing the city turned nuclear disaster site.


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